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I’d like to install a second VBR Enterprise Plus server (different catalog) to my secondary site for backing up servers at that location. Question is, can I use my existing license on it and have both VBRs running at the same time?

I have a 30 instances license. 

Hi, this is a fully supported scenario. You must run Veeam Backup Enterprise manager and attach both VBR servers to it for centralised license management though

Hi @Arin -

Michael has you covered here...Ent Mgr is the way to do this. Keep in mind though, between both VBR servers, you can’t exceed your instance count...kind of. Veeam does provide a “grace” for exceeding your instance limit of 30. You can review by how much from the Licensing section of the User Guide; and, the amount you can exceed depends on 2 factors → 1. how many instances you have; 2. whether you have license autoupdate enabled or disabled.

You can also find information about how licensing works with VEM here - Licensing - Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager Guide

It also explains adding VBR servers for the auto license updating.

Is there any caveat to installing Ent manager on a separate server? What happens if Ent manager loses connection to the VBR servers?

No...it's recommended to install EM on its own server. 

Is there any caveat to installing Ent manager on a separate server? What happens if Ent manager loses connection to the VBR servers?

You can install it on separate server yes as that is probably the better way to go based on best practices.  If you lose the VEM then the license remains active until you get it back up and connected to VBR again.  You just cannot do a password recovery while it is down.

I installed EM separately. Depending on how many servers, indexing, and other factors the resourses can get pretty taxing on the VBR server as well as EM and it’s nice to be able to control each one differently.  There are different networking requirements too.   EM has to talk to all the VBR servers, but that doesn’t mean you want all the VBR servers talking to each other. 

 

You control the license from EM after you configure it. There are other great features, like searching backup index that I use EM for. Even with a single VBR instance it is a handy tool. 

@Arin for what it’s worth I’m a big fan of using a single VBR server in the secondary site instead and then leverage pools of proxies in each location to enable backups. This allows you to always have VBR in your backup site while maintaining a single instance.

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